Digg Reboot: First Look at the New Digg

Digg's Revamped News Aggregator Enters Testing Phase

A refreshed iteration of Digg’s news aggregation platform is currently undergoing testing, providing initial insights into the offerings of this potential competitor to Reddit, specifically designed for the age of artificial intelligence.

Digg's History and Rebirth

Digg once held a valuation of $175 million in 2008, but was subsequently dismantled and sold off over the course of a decade. In March, Kevin Rose, the original founder of Digg, joined forces with Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, to revive the brand and reimagine the platform for contemporary internet users.

The founders believe that the internet is experiencing an influx of bots and AI agents, which will inevitably increase the need for online communities like Digg that prioritize genuine human interaction. They are also exploring the implementation of technologies to verify user authenticity, such as zero-knowledge proofs, alongside other tools designed to confirm a user’s human status before allowing them to post and participate in discussions.

First Look at the iOS App

On Friday, Digg released its iOS application to testers within its Groundbreakers community, comprised of early adopters. This alpha version of the app offers a preliminary view of the direction the reimagined Digg is taking.

The application boasts a streamlined design, featuring a bottom navigation bar for seamless transitions between sections like the Home feed, Search functionality, Leaderboards, and the user profile page.

Content Feeds and Communities

Similar to Reddit, Digg provides a variety of feeds that allow users to explore content in different ways. These include feeds showcasing the platform’s most popular content ("Most Dugg"), the newest submissions, trending posts, and content that is "Heating up." These filters can be applied to either the entirety of Digg or specifically to your personalized Feed, which is curated based on the communities you follow.

Currently, Digg offers a limited number of communities centered around interests such as art, entertainment, sports, finance, food, music, science, and technology. Communities are also available for Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions, news tracking, and discussions specifically about Digg itself. (The company has indicated that the ability to create custom communities will be introduced in subsequent tests.)

User Interaction and AI Summarization

Users can interact with posts by upvoting or downvoting them, saving content, and contributing to discussions through comments.

Digg is integrating AI to provide summaries of article content directly beneath posts. This trend of news summarization has gained traction in applications like Artifact (acquired by Yahoo) and contemporary news readers such as Particle. However, the accuracy of AI-generated summaries can vary, leading some publishers to hesitate in their implementation.

As of now, Digg has not incorporated additional AI summarization features, such as the ability to explain a story from multiple perspectives or simplify it for easier understanding ("Explain it like I’m 5"), as seen in earlier AI news applications.

Unique Voting System and Gamification

To distinguish its voting buttons from Reddit, Digg employs icons designed to resemble shovels, rather than traditional up and down arrows. However, the design requires refinement, as some users have noted the ambiguity of the icons – it’s currently unclear which represents an upvote and which a downvote.

User Profiles and Leaderboards

The app includes user profiles displaying bios, statistics, posted content, and achievements. Users can earn “Gems” by being the first to “Digg” a post that subsequently becomes trending on the platform; earlier discovery yields more Gems.

Leaderboards within the mobile app highlight top daily posts, comments, and Gem-earners. Digg has stated it is responding to user feedback and is reducing the emphasis on gamification elements on the desktop version.

Importantly, Digg has addressed past issues by making its leaderboards time-bound, refreshing every 24 hours.

Lessons Learned from the Past

In the previous iteration of Digg, during the Web 2.0 era, leaderboards were often dominated by influential individuals who could significantly impact trending topics. Users sometimes coordinated to promote or suppress content, and some even charged fees for story placement.

While the rebooted Digg aims to avoid these issues, the inclusion of leaderboards, even in their current form, may be perceived negatively.

The Challenge Ahead

Despite the promising state of the alpha app, it remains to be seen why users would choose Digg over Reddit. This may change as Digg introduces user-created communities and customization options.

Rose has indicated that Digg intends to leverage AI to assist in community design in the future.

“We envision a future where you can converse with a built-in LLM on Digg and specify how you want your community to appear… the placement of widgets and the structuring of information,” he explained.

Update: Digg has since modified the bury button; further details about these updates can be found here.